Apple has joined a long list of companies allowed to test driverless vehicles on Californian roads. The news comes courtesy of the America Department of Motor Vehicles, which published an updated list of issued permits. Interestingly, Apple is doing nothing to try to keep its work with cars a secret.
The DMV has issued permits for three autonomous 2015 Lexus RX450h to operate on the road. Curiously, this is the same model of vehicle that Google has been using to test its own autonomous cars.
Rumours claim that Apple is looking to begin building its own cars, but there has been little evidence to support this theory thus far. Apple, for its part, has largely focused on getting its consumer devices integrated with vehicles through the Apple CarPlay feature. Nothing has been said about actually building a car has come up.
It will probably be a very long time before we see any sort of Apple made vehicle on the streets. Alphabet owned Waymo, formerly a part of Google, is the furthest along with its testing and is still years from a viable product. This is after having the driverless cars travel several thousand kilometres without any major incidents.
[Source: DMV]
